Which PC UNIX to do this...

I would like to ask your opinion on a matter relating to UNIX. I have been in the IT arena for some eleven years now - however, mostly involving Databases, Data Warehouses and OLAP technology. I quite adapt at all versions of MSDOS and Windows (3.1/95/NT), however I believe it is time to open my eyes to the world of UNIX. Of course, I studied the use of UNIX whilst at University -
however, not to any great level.

What I plan to do is this: I have purchased two second hand Dell 466L desktop computers. Both have 16mb of RAM, 486-66dx processors, 3Com Etherlink III cards, and currently 210MB IDE drives. I plan to move both hard disks in to one machine and have that solely for Windows 95 (for my Wife). The other, I plan to add a 1GB IDE drive, a 28.8 modem (internal), and a CDROM (not SCSI)..

This is what I plan to do with my ‘new’ UNIX machine:

· X windows - use it, code for it, play around with some nice free-ish utilities for it, my machine has a PS2 style mouse attached to it · UNIX Command line - get back to scratch with it - try and do what the administrators do!

· WWW/FTP Server - try and set-up a ‘free’ web server based on my home network (i.e. get the other Win95 Dell computer to connect via Ethernet) to try out HTML, Java, CGI, etc. - the same with FTP (i.e. get used to setting it up like the big boys do)

Now then, on to the main question - which OS do I use. Is it the near-free SCO OpenDesktop or is it Linux? My requirements are outlined above and before I found out about the near-free SCO UNIX, I was set on Linux because, basically, it was free. I now have OpenDesktop at £20 - not a bad deal by a long shot. So, based on the hardware I have and the things I would like to do
- which would YOU say was the best OS to follow??????????

I do not know if there exists a ‘free’ Web server for SCO UNIX (or come to that, for Linux). Also, like I said, I plan to install a non-SCSI CD-ROM drive in the Dell (and I don’t know if its IDE adapter is ATAPI or not).

Problems, problems. I hope to be able to have a UNIX host on one Dell, and have the other (Win95) dell connecting via TCP/IP for the Webby stuff.

I would highly reccommend Linux over SCO Unix. There is far more
hardware and software supported by Linux than SCO. The hardware you listed is supported. There are three free web servers that I know of that have been ported to Linux (Apachee, CERN, and NCSA).
Most distribution of Linux come with a web server. The GNU development suite is also easily obtainable for Linux.

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